Business Technology Roundtable

We’re nearing the end of 2014 and most smart CEOs already know their IT transformation game plan for 2015 – more digital differentiation woven into the fabric of their essential operations. Every enterprise is now a digital business, regardless of the industry. That’s why digital service innovators are in such high demand. Meanwhile, many of the more traditional IT process-oriented jobs will diminish in importance. Are you evolving your IT support team’s roles and responsibilities, as a result these key trends? Forward-thinking CIOs and IT managers have already embraced business technology that will do some of the more tedious routine system administration tasks via automation, so that they can redirect their focus to higher-priority activities. What’s considered a pressing requirement? Many believe that it’s attaining parity in the enterprise with the freemium consumer cloud offerings that have helped to fuel the so-called Shadow IT phenomenon. Public Cloud Gains More Converts ...

Public cloud service adoption is already a mainstream phenomenon in most organizations. Meanwhile, many large enterprises see a private cloud in their future. But choosing whether to invest in building an internal cloud infrastructure or buy from a cloud service provider will become more challenging – in anticipation, savvy IT leaders are becoming brokers of dynamic business technology solutions. Hybrid cloud resource management and progressive operational process adoption are the key focal points in preparation for this transition. Moreover, Line of Business demand for emerging use cases and just-in-time IT workload creation requires speedy access to a managed self-serve DevOps deployment model . That’s why comprehensive management and provisioning tools -- such as Red Hat CloudForms -- have become essential platforms. Besides, given the pervasive trends in the marketplace, every business will eventually need an actionable hybrid cloud adoption plan. It’s a requirement of the for...

As an informed senior executive, you already know that it's no longer a question of whether cloud service adoption is the right forward-thinking business technology strategy, but rather how you will leverage the abundance of new resources to outpace your competition. More companies will be working within very heterogeneous cloud service environments, thereby putting more pressure on IT organizations that must deal with these additional complexities, according to a recent market study by Cloud Connect and the Everest Group . Their latest market study reveals the increasing influence of cloud services on IT budgets, staff skills and business strategy. Moreover, the findings within the "2014 Enterprise Cloud Adoption Survey" report debunks hyped-up perceptions with key facts. "The new reality our research points to is that the modern enterprise will not be defined by public, private or hybrid but rather all of the above," said Steve Wylie, cloud connect gener...

There once was a time when many business leaders around the world stood on the sidelines, while the early-adopters of cloud computing reaped the rewards with their first-to-market deployments. Today, managed cloud services are considered a mainstream business technology for all takers -- with only the most uninformed laggards still disputing the apparent benefits. With 90 percent of companies claiming some form of cloud usage, many organizations have moved to the next step, leveraging multiple cloud models in different combinations to optimize benefits and efficiencies, according to findings from the latest market study by CompTIA . As cloud computing becomes a default part of the business technology landscape, more companies are relying on cloud computing for business processes such as storage (59 percent), business continuity and disaster recovery (48 percent) and security (44 percent). “Once companies hit a stage where they are using cloud systems as a standard part of IT ar...

The cloud movement is about much more than the service offerings. It's a core ingredient of a larger commercial transformation movement -- where savvy leaders are using business technology to advance their operations and accelerate their key processes. According to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC), worldwide spending on hosted private cloud (HPC) services will be more than $24 billion in 2016. IDC says that they define HPC as an operational model for deploying computing infrastructure services of many types via the cloud. IDC forecasts that HPC spending will experience a compound annual growth rate of more than 50 percent during the 2012-2016 period, as companies look to managed cloud services in its various forms as a means to transform the 'how' of what they provide to their customers. Evolution of Public and Private Cloud Models IDC believes that hosted private cloud offerings will become the backbone of a new set of infrastructure...

The detractors of cloud computing benefits will state that the typical adoption is still limited at most enterprises -- they're deploying cloud services to a few early-adopters. That being said, some leading markets are confidently moving ahead with mainstream deployments, regardless of the caution. While others, such as western Europe, are apparently in transition. The western European private cloud market will grow at a CAGR of 23.2 percent for the next five years to reach $7.9 billion in 2016, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation ( IDC ). IDC has been looking in-depth at the private cloud marketplace -- from a hardware, software, services and networking points of view. "The growth of private cloud is even more impressive in the context of the current economic situation," said Mette Ahorlu, research director, IDC European Services. According to IDC's assessment, demand in the region is being driven by the need for cost sa...

Government agencies are reportedly one of the primary benefactors of managed cloud services. According to the results from a recent market study by IDC, IT decision-makers across the Asia-Pacific region (excluding Japan) found that 59 percent of public sector respondents are confident in the ability of their internal IT departments to deploy private cloud environments. However, IDC Government Insights cautions that high levels of private cloud adoption may not bode well for a collaborative and citizen-engaging government and preemptive measures should be taken for collaboration to take place across organizational boundaries. More insights can be found in the IDC report entitled, "Cloud Computing for Government: a View from Asia-Pacific." Frank Levering, Research Manager for IDC said, "An efficient and productive internal IT department is definitely a good to have in any organization, private or public. However, a department that is highly confident in running its o...

Cloud computing demand will drive new IT spending over the next five years, as public cloud service providers and the adopters of private cloud solutions invest in the supporting infrastructure, according to a recent market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). Therefore, the leading managed cloud service providers have been busy expanding their service delivery platforms. Overall spending by public cloud service providers on storage hardware, software, and professional services will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23.6 percent from 2010 to 2015, while enterprise spending on storage for the private cloud will experience a CAGR of 28.9 percent. By 2015, combined spending for public and private cloud storage will be $22.6 billion worldwide. "Despite current economic uncertainties, IDC expects cloud service providers -- both public and private -- to be among the most expansive spenders on IT products and services as they continue to build out their f...

According to the latest market study by International Data Corporation ( IDC ), cloud computing will continue to reshape the business technology landscape over the next five years -- as spending on public cloud services expands at a CAGR of 27.6 percent, from $21.5 billion in 2010 to $72.9 billion in 2015. That said, apparently the trend and resulting impact of cloud services will extend well beyond information technology (IT) spending. Managed cloud services are a critical component in a much larger transformation that IDC expects will be instrumental in driving IT industry growth for the next 25 years. "Cloud services are interconnected with and accelerated by other disruptive technologies, including mobile devices, wireless networks, big data analytics, and social networking," said Frank Gens, senior vice president and chief analyst at IDC. This collective group of technologies are merging into the industry's third major platform for long-term growth. Similar to...

The promise of cloud computing and application hosting benefits are already delivering practical solutions to very real business problems, according to the latest market study by In-Stat . In fact, many small businesses are using managed cloud services as their primary method to solve a variety of IT requirements. "Web hosting and data storage are the most obvious IT needs that can be addressed by public cloud services" says Greg Potter, Research Analyst at In-Stat. "With the advent of Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings many businesses are realizing that much of their IT needs can be fulfilled without the need for expensive networking equipment and high-end computers." Moreover, many small businesses are now re-visiting the use of thin clients for most of their employees, as the need for increased computer processing power is rendered moot by the cloud. SMB IT Applications Transition to the Cloud For the SOHO and small business market, there is consid...

Cisco released the final installment of the Cisco Connected World Report, an international study about the behavioral trends of workers in accessing information anywhere, with any device, and the ability of information technology (IT) professionals to address their needs. The latest results focus on data center, virtualization, and cloud computing trends , and evolving IT roles, in the context of increasingly mobile and distributed workforces. The study found that global IT professionals are creating new job opportunities by increasing collaboration among teams in the data center, and adopting new technologies such as virtualization and cloud computing . But they’re also struggling to maintain security and data governance as employees demand more offsite access to networks and information. Comparing Cloud Adoption Rates by Country For example, across the 13 countries in the global study, 52 percent of the IT professionals stated they use or plan to use cloud computing, while mu...

Worldwide spending on data center technology infrastructure and services exceeds $350 billion annually, according to McKinsey and Company estimates, with half of that spent on capital expenses and half on operating expenses. Further, an estimated 70 percent or more of those costs are expended to maintain existing infrastructures, leaving 30 percent or less for new technology initiatives and applications that can provide breakthrough differentiation for businesses. It is also estimated that approximately $85 billion, or 20 percent of this total market, can be addressed with data center virtualization and private cloud technology by 2015. Cisco and EMC , together with VMware , have introduced the Virtual Computing Environment coalition, an unprecedented collaboration of three information technology (IT) industry leaders. Virtual Computing Environment Coalition Charter The coalition has been created to accelerate customers' ability to increase business agility through greater IT inf...

Business technology has gone through several major changes over the decades. Each transformation brought new ways to perform work -- it also allowed some organizations to leapfrog over their less-agile competition. "Today's CEO concerns provide an advanced look at what will become CIO priorities in six to 18 months," said Jorge Lopez, vice president at Gartner, Inc . The focus for the IT agenda in the face of economic uncertainty and risk is flexibility, and renewed business agility. According to Gartner's assessment, CIOs need to ensure that their IT operations are ready for the ongoing challenges and shifts that are sure to emerge. Defined as the ability to achieve financial and strategic plans, effectiveness gives enterprises the flexibility to meet challenge with change. So, how will CIOs improve effectiveness to meet new economic and operational challenges? Business Imperative for Cloud-based Services IT leaders are increasingly being asked to move all...

The Business Technology Roundtable (BTR) provides information and guidance to help you understand the available options, proceed through the buying cycle, and select a best-fit provider of managed services, hosting services and evolving cloud services. We also provide links to tools, such as a procurement checklist or buyer’s guide, and a build vs. buy calculator that can be used to help you build a business case for service deployment and adoption within your organization. We also seek to gauge which problems you encounter or solutions you seek -- ideas for new services and new online tools that are most important and most relevant. Visit the BTR Idea Exchange to participate in our open collaboration effort. This is your opportunity, by contributing your ideas, to tell service providers what you require from them. This is an open public list, and all service providers can view it. You can either submit an idea or vote on an idea that's already been submitted -- all you need is a...